What can a blogger do to inspire travel in this bizarre situation that we are nowadays living? Travel is becoming a controversial topic these days. We have spoken with different leading bloggers from the world of travel and they gave us their best thoughts about tourism in the post-corona world. They know for certain where we have to travel, when and how.
“Travel blogs can act as a portal for travellers to ask the smaller, niche questions that people feel awkward asking a national tourist board about”, said Abigail King, from the blog Inside Travel Lab. This is the main task of bloggers, which consists of being a reference for everybody who follows them and to persuade them with new content and their opinions and advice. Not only they do this task, but they also have an important role to play in shaping the future of travel in a COVID framework. According to Keith Jenkins, from Velvet Escape blog, in addition to inspiring travel, highlighting destinations and providing useful information, bloggers can also raise awareness and educate travellers about responsible and sustainable travel practices. He thinks that we must bet on slow travel and that connecting with nature and cultural immersion should be important aspects to focus on.
They all agreed on the essence of travelling inspiration. It should be on how we are travelling and where we spend our tourism dollars. We need a point of convergence on supporting better environmental initiatives, stories of community projects, and how we can all travel to support the local economy and change lives. According to Matt Long, from the blog Land Lopers, supporting local restaurants, breweries, wineries… from now on will be seen as an act of kindness and compassion instead of something more selfish.
“This is an unmissable opportunity to shift to sustainable tourism. As tourist numbers will increase gradually over the next years, it’s the ideal time to phase out unsustainable activities and types of tourism (like cheap Ryanair weekends, spend 24 hours in a city, stag/hen parties), and focus on more sustainable long term solutions,” said Margherita Ragg and Nick Burns, from The Crowded Planet.
On the other hand, Michael Turtle, from Time Travel Turtle, thinks that by focusing on the unique experiences – the things you can’t do or see in your own area – we will be able to remind people why travel is so special.
Travel will resume slowly, in a series of steps, city and regional travel first, then domestic travel, short-haul international travel, and then long-haul international travel. The task of the bloggers here is to become ‘ambassadors’ for their hometowns and home regions first, showcasing lesser-known sights and destinations, and then gradually widen their focus as travel restrictions are lifted.
The Coronavirus will hopefully teach us to slow down, take stock of destructive practice and strip down selfish needs in travel, together with being a part of the educational change.